Peru's Vargas Llosa to take secret of Garcia Marquez spat to grave

CARACAS (Reuters) - Peruvian author and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa vowed on Thursday to honor until death a pact with his late Colombian counterpart Gabriel Garcia Marquez not to reveal the mystery of their famous decades-old enmity.

The two Latin American literary greats were once friends, but stopped speaking to each other in 1976 when Vargas Llosa gave Garcia Marquez a black eye in a dispute - depending on who one believes - over politics or the Peruvian's wife.

"There's a pact between Garcia Marquez and myself (not to talk about it)," Vargas Llosa, 78, said at a meeting of right-wing intellectuals in Caracas when a journalist popped the inevitable question following the Colombian's death last week.

"He respected it until his death, and I will do the same. Let's leave it to our biographers, if we deserve them, to investigate that issue."

Vargas Llosa, who once ran for president in Peru on a conservative ticket, lamented the passing of his erstwhile rival, a friend of Cuba's Fidel Castro with left-leaning views.